Colin Jost has revealed his wife Scarlett Johansson’s real response to his “brutal” joke about her on Saturday Night Live.
The Black Widow star, 40, was left open-mouthed in horror as her live reaction was filmed for the show’s 2024 Christmas special last month.
Among the jokes about her age and childbirth, the comedian made a dig about the star’s vagina.
“Costco has removed their roast beef sandwich from its menu, but I ain’t tripping. I be eating roast beef every night since my wife had the kid,” he said to an eruption of laughter from the audience.
During an appearance on Tonight with Jimmy Fallon on Monday (20 January), the host asked if the gag had got him “in trouble” with his wife.
“I’m in trouble I think with a lot of people,” he said. “Scarlett was genuinely so shocked.”
Jost revealed that although Johansson was “obviously surprised”, the show’s team had attempted to soften the landing by giving her a heads up.
“They were like, ‘Hey, would you be okay if Michael made a little, like, kind of vagina joke at some point?’” Jost said.
“She was like, ‘Sure, you know, whatever, I’m open to it,’” Jost said.
He admitted that he “didn’t know where it was going, and then the graphic came up for Arby’s.”
“And so, Scarlett is backstage like, ‘Oh, my god! That’s what it is?’” he recalled.
Fallon called it a “legitimate live moment” adding “You weren’t acting at all.”
“I was not. I can’t act that well,” he responded.
At the time fans were shocked by the lengths that Jost and his co-host Michael Che went to as one person wrote: “This is easily the most brutal one they’ve done yet, went straight for the throat on every single joke.”
It is not the first time that Jost has been tricked into making jokes about the Lost in Translation star.
In July, during another joke swap, Che made Jost say: “ChatGPT has released a new voice assistant feature inspired by Scarlett Johansson’s AI character in Her,” a nervous Jost told viewers. “Which I’ve never bothered to watch, because without that body what’s the point of listening?”
Jost and Johansson first started dating in 2017, following her divorce from her second husband Romain Dauriac. In May 2019, the couple were engaged before getting married in their New York home in October 2020.
